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Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
At the pedestrian crossing the sign of a green man lit up. The people who were waiting began to cross the road, stepping on the white stripes painted on the black surface of the asphalt, there is nothing less like a zebra, however, that is what it is called.
This is a promising start to Blindness -- the descriptive language, the comic timing. Also the final line of the first chapter is very nice: "That night the blind man dreamt he was blind."
It will take a little while to really get into the rhythm of the dialogue -- I'm reminded of how it takes some time to get into the groove reading Gaddis.
posted afternoon of December 25th, 2007: Respond
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Friday, December 21st, 2007
Ooh, I never got to do this before! -- being catless and all. My dad sends along this picture of a stray the animal control people brought into his office. (He is a consultant for the city government.)  And speaking of cats...
posted morning of December 21st, 2007: Respond
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Thursday, December 20th, 2007
Meredith Sue Willis has a blog! (Found via South Orange Journal's list of links.) One without permalinks, which I haven't seen much of lately. But if you scroll down to December 12 you will see she is recommending José Saramago's Blindness. This is good timing because I had been looking for a book to read, Blindness was on my list but forgotten, I think now is a good time to find a copy and read it.
posted afternoon of December 20th, 2007: Respond
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Wednesday, December 19th, 2007
The opening pages of Absalom, Absalom! are great pages. I was trying today to figure out what I could compare them to: they are sort of like a really long shot in film of a scene with very little action or dialogue, with the camera panning and tracking its subjects, taking in every detail of an elaborate set. But what this scenario really brings to mind is the reaction I am always hoping to have (and only rarely actually experiencing) to seeing a great painting. Faulkner is narrating the experience of looking hard, for minutes on end, at a painting of the scene he is describing. (Also: my memory of this book doesn't have much to say about Quentin Compson; but rereading these opening pages, I am thinking he's a really important element to understanding what's being told. I wonder if after the beginning of the book, Faulkner moves more completely into the world of Miss Coldfield's story. Or alternately if I just missed out on the point of the story, when I read it last.)
posted evening of December 19th, 2007: Respond
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Saturday, December 15th, 2007
With the sojourn in Güdül, The New Life is starting to feel more like a book than it was before. I mean it is still very weird and different from other books -- but I now have the sensation that I'm reading a novel, which I didn't really before. I'm seeing some intimations of Snow -- the narrator's reaction to the town is a bit reminiscent of Ka in Kars; his desire for Janan is like Ka's desire for İpek -- and this though they are very different characters individually and pairwise; and the militant fundamentalism in Güdül, and the sense that the place is on the edge of breaking down -- these are some bits that I think come out more fully in Snow.
posted evening of December 15th, 2007: Respond
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Saturday, December 8th, 2007
Monk's Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz History in the Making, by Dr. Gabriel Solis -- ordered back in June -- has been printed and just now arrived on my doorstep!
posted evening of December 8th, 2007: Respond
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Tuesday, December 4th, 2007
The Millions is publishing a series of posts by various notables recommending books they have enjoyed this year, under the heading 2007: A Year in Reading. Go check it out, lots of interesting stuff. (hat tip to LanguageHat, whose post is the first in the series.) For my own part, my recommendation for 2007 is Pamuk -- I first delved into Snow in July and his books have been very much on my mind ever since. He captures, with as much clarity as I have ever seen, the world I live in -- though his novels are set in locations geographically, culturally, and temporally removed from my own. Heartfelt thanks to Dr. Snarkout, for introducing me to Pamuk's work. (My other big discoveries of 2007 are not reading-related: Robyn Hitchcock and Pedro Almodóvar.)
posted morning of December 4th, 2007: Respond
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Monday, December third, 2007
My brother asks in e-mail, "Really, did you actually love 'Aguirre, etc.' or did you just understand that it's a Great Film?" by way of saying that he understood it to be Great Film but did not find anything to enjoy in the film itself. This is interesting to me because (a) I did actually, authentically enjoy this film and (b) I worry, when I am liking something that I know is Great, about whether my enjoyment is real. In "On Reading: Words or Images", Pamuk says,
When we notice [our surroundings while reading], we are at the same time savoring our solitude and the workings of our imagination and congratulating ourselves on possessing greater depth than those who do not read. I understand how a reader might, without going too far, wish to congratulate himself, though I have little patience for those who take pride in boasting.
So that is the worry when I tell myself I loved Aguirre, the Wrath of God or My Name Is Red or whatever -- how do I distinguish between the externally-directed pleasure of fancying myself a connoisseur of fine film or literature, and the internal, actual pleasure of understanding and appreciating the work in question? I have an unexamined prejudice that the former pleasure is in bad faith, is boastful and something to be ashamed of.
Herzog's (and Kinski's) genius is certainly front and center in Aguirre -- it seems to me like it would be difficult to watch the movie without having the thought that it is the work of a genius, that it is Great Film. But, I'm not quite sure how to put this, the movie itself is so powerful and moving, the second-hand attributes of the movie are not primary in my mind while I'm watching it.
posted evening of December third, 2007: Respond
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... I said to myself: the young traveler was so determined to find the unknown realm, he let himself be transported without respite on roads that would take him to the threshold.
With this line, at the end of the third chapter, I feel like I am starting to get a handle on The New Life -- that it is the narrative this character has conjured up for himself to distance himself from disappointment and lack of fulfilment in his own life. This book seems to me like it would make a great movie -- there is a definite cinematic feeling to some of the descriptive passages.* But I guess in the adaptation, the book which leads the main character to intimations of a new reality would need to be changed to a movie on videocassette or some such.
*What I mean to say is, I think the narration fetishizes visual impressions -- like for instance, the narrator describes the experience of reading the book several times in terms of light pouring out of the book. (Another argument for using a videotape instead of a book?) I often get the impression that the only connection between the world in his head and the world outside his head, is the portal of his eyes.
posted evening of December third, 2007: Respond
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Saturday, December first, 2007
OK, Portia has won my heart. This scene is marvelous -- I am finding it really consuming to read, it has a command over my attention that the first half of the play did not, really -- I am suspending disbelief in the strangeness of the events recounted, hanging on the edge of my chair thinking What has Portia got up her sleeve and Oh, so that's it! when she plays her card. The trial scene up to Portia's entrance is just beautiful poetry. Check this out:
- SHYLOCK
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...
So I can give no reason, nor will I not,
More than a lodged hate and a certain loathing
That I bear Antonio, that I pursue
A losing suit against him. Are you answered?
- BASSANIO
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There is no answer, thou unfeeling man,
To excuse the current of thy cruelty.
- SHYLOCK
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I am not bound to please thee with my answers.
- BASSANIO
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Do all men kill the things they do not love?
- SHYLOCK
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Hates any man the thing he would not kill?
- BASSANIO
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Every offense is not a hate at first.
- SHYLOCK
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What, would thou have a serpent sting thee twice?
- ANTONIO
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I pray you, think you question with the Jew.
You may as well go stand upon the beach,
And bid the main flood bate his usual height;
You may as well use question with the wolf,
Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb;
You may as well forbid the mountain pines
To wag their high tops and to make no noise
When they are fretten with the gusts of heaven;
...
I'm seeing lots of possibly meaningless parallels to other works. Right now I'm thinking Wow, this is a great trial scene, I really liked the trial scene in Aguirre last night, I wonder if there's any connection... and Shylock begging the court to take his life with his property is reminding me of "Lady Waters and the Hooded One" -- but I don't think either of these has enough substance to make the basis for an actual thought...
posted afternoon of December first, 2007: Respond
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